


A Long Time Ago

by Talayse



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Crossover, Gen, It Gets Better, OFCs - Freeform, Sad, Space Archeology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-24 02:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13801674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talayse/pseuds/Talayse
Summary: Star Wars canon plot continuity errors explained.





	A Long Time Ago

"Essa, Essa! Come over here."

Essa sighed, set down her brush and went over to where Nixa was still messing around with an artifact they had catalogued yesterday and been instructed to ignore. Nixa wasn't terribly good at following the site leader's instructions. Essa rather thought this was because the man was an idiot and Nixa didn't hold with idiots.

"What is it Nixa?" she said, stopping next to where Nixa had a variety of tools laid out that were not archeological in nature. They looked like mechanic's tools.

"I modified a power coupling to run this on one of our generators," Nixa said.

"Are you crazy?" Essa asked, glancing around. They were alone in their corner of the ruins.

"I don't think it's a garbage can," Nixa said, "it's too complex for that. Henren dismissed it too quickly, he's wants flashy, easy answers."

"We're supposed to observe and preserve, not hot-wire our technology into the technology of a galaxy of multiple species that have all been wiped out! You don't know what happened here."

Nixa set a wrench down on the cloth she had spread out over the rubble. She flicked a switch Essa couldn't see, "We'll never find out what happened here unless we start listening to the answers to the questions we ask. And to do that, we have to push some buttons, flick few switches."

The erstwhile garbage can was now humming. Essa backed away, Nixa looked delighted. The can groaned, then let out a series of beeps and whistles. Essa was pretty sure that Nixa cackled at this point. The top of the can spun until it found Nixa.

"Hi," Nixa said. This earned her a longer series of beeps, some of them sounded kind of rude.

There were some more noises from the can, and then suddenly a hologram projected from a lense that yesterday Henren had declared was for scanning the garbage before it was disposed of. A young, human woman in white was outlined in the blue of the projection.

 

_"Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope."_

 

Essa and Nixa shared a look as the machine played the same incomprehensible words over and over. 

"What do you think it means?" Nixa asked, awed.

"I think you're in trouble. I think you like to cause trouble," Essa replied.

"We're here to find the truth, not to conveniently label everything as an _'object used for ceremonial purposes,'_ Essa." Nixa placed her hand on the dome of the machine.

The machine suddenly cut the projection and made a sad sounding noise, almost an "Oh, oh," drawn out.

"I think it's talking," Nixa said.

"Great, you've found a talking garbage can," Essa said, crossing her arms over her chest.

The machine made a rude noise at her.

"I don't think it likes you," Nixa said. She crouched down to be what she guessed as eye level with the little machine. "Hello, my name is Nixa Vonne, we're here on an archeological expedition from the Milky Way Galaxy, several million light years yonder," she gestured vaguely, she was not an astrophysist and was somewhat incorrect.

The machine let out a series of almost musical beeps. It ended with another of the sad, "Oh, oh," sounds.

"I swear it understands me, I wonder . . ." Nixa trailed off.

"We are not doing the Star Trek one beep for yes, two for no," Essa said.

"I think it speaks binary," Nixa said, reaching for her tablet.

The machine suddenly became agitated, rocking on its legs and beeping rapidly.

"Shush, shush," Essa said, "We don't want to be caught."

The machine quieted down, but was still rocking and spinning its head around. Nixa was messing with some cables and a soldering pen.

"How does it understand English then, we haven't found any writings that indicate language at all."

Nixa sighed, "This isn't ancient Earth archeology Essa, they weren't carving things in rock, or saving things for posterity, they probably didn't realize they were going to die out and we were going to wander so far from home and poke through their remains."

Essa shivered, "You make it all sound so tawdry."

Nixa looked up at her for a moment, but didn't answer. She plugged her cables into her tablet and woke it up, bringing up a code writing program. The little machine, seeing what she was doing, opened one of its own compartments for her to plug the cables into.

The machine whirred quietly to itself, then suddenly, lines of text appeared in the program Nixa had opened. "Holy shit," she breathed.

 

_[Hello! My name is R2-D2, thank you so very much for charging me up.]_

_[I am an astromech droid, not a garbage can, thank you very much. Why would anyone put an AI in a garbage can? What a waste.]_

_[Nixa, you missed a few circuits when you were cleaning my connections, and there's a primary wire that needs replacing, but it can wait until later.]_

_[I've been waiting a very, very long time for someone to talk to.]_

Essa had moved to read over Nixa's shoulder, and the two women shared a look. "Wall-E," Nixa said. 

Essa smacked her playfully. "You really have to top watching those ancient films."

"Classics," Nixa said. Then to R2-D2 she said, "It's very nice to meet you, R2-D2, it was my honour to help restore you. What would you like to talk about?"

 

_[You said you were from a galaxy, far, far away. Well, a long time ago there was a period of civil war in this galaxy . . .]_

 

"What do you mean she's _his_ sister?" Nixa said to R2-D2, nearly shouting.

"That's what gets you, not that Vader was his father?" Essa demands.

"Oh please, I saw that coming. Terrible Dads are apparently universal. But how can she be his sister?"

"Why are you so disappointed?"

"They were making out a little while ago, I thought they were gonna live happily ever after."

"No way, she's clearly going to go for Han, which is a bad idea, but-" Essa shrugged. "Who was their Mom anyway?"

 

_[Even longer ago in this galaxy . . .Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic . . .]_

 

"I think he's having us on," Essa said.

"He's a primary source, with databanks our techs _dream_ of to recall from, why would he be having us on?" Nixa asked.

"Why don't they have currency exchange? Galactic-wide Government but no currency exchange?" Essa said.

"That is a good point," Nixa said.

 

"Wait, she marries the kid, not the hot Jedi?" Essa said.

 

_[I know, right?]_ R2-D2 responded. _[Obi-Wan was a way better catch.]_

"You should have told her that way back then," Nixa said.

R2-D2 shrugged.

 

"Cut his arms and legs off?"

 

"Died in childbirth?! But wait, I thought you said Leia remembered her mother?" Nixa said.

"I told you he was having us on," Essa said.

"Why would he do that?"

"He's a little shit, can't you tell? He's the hero of these stories, haven't you noticed?"

 

_[Not all of them, there's only so much one small droid can do in the face of a Galaxy of idiots. Let me tell you about K-2SO.]_

 

"I think he made that one up."

"Why?"

"How does he know what happened if they all died at the end?"

 

_[Unfortunately, the peace brought by the downfall of the Empire didn't last very long. I mostly slept through it actually, it was very boring . . .]_

 

Nixa and Essa were exhausted. R2-D2 had taken them on a whirlwind adventure, complete with sound effects and holographic aids. If he had had hands, Nixa was sure there would have been gestures as well. But he still hadn't answered their question, "What happened to all those species, all that life?"

R2-D2 had gone silent, the cursor in the code program on Nixa's tablet blinked lazily.

The droid regarded first Essa then Nixa with his optical sensor, fixing it on Nixa as he made the sad, "oh, oh," sound and then text flew across the screen once more.

 

_[The various successors that the Empire spawned were so obsessed with destruction as a form of control that they moved on from destroying worlds and began to research a way to destroy the Force, the energy created by and surrounding all living creatures. And they did, they made a weapon to destroy the Force. And everyone alive, died. They hadn't really thought that one through.]_

 

"Wouldn’t it kill us?" Essa asked, skeptical.

R2-D2 shook his head. It made Nixa dizzy to watch him. 

 

_[It was a single shot weapon. And they didn't realize, and perhaps I should have said, it took all organic life. The droids went on for quite some time. Older droids like me, had a bit of the Force around them, but the Force itself cannot generate life.]_

_[And then it was just me. The Force is all around you, and I can see it once again.]_

 

Nixa was crying, R2-D2 was still holding her gaze. She handed Essa her tablet and kneeled down, wrapping her arms around R2, hugging the little droid.

"I can't believe you are hugging a robot," Essa said. "Actually, I can. But you probably shouldn't be hugging an artifact."

"Damn it Essa, he's a person who's had a rather tragic life," Nixa said, standing up. She grabbed her tablet away and plugged it into the external hard drive that she had been recording R2's story on.

"Can we verify any of that?" Essa asked R2-D2. "It's not that I don't believe you, it just how science works."

R2 answered with his whistles and beeps, the tablet being plugged into the hard drive meant it couldn't display text for him.

"He said if we take him to Yavin IV he can show us how to access the Rebellion data there," Nixa said absently.

"Did he figure out how to broadcast a wireless signal to your tablet?" Essa asked.

"No," Nixa answered.

R2-D2 said something else as Nixa unplugged the tablet from the hard drive.

"We came by Stargate," Nixa said. "But we have a starship, yes. Do you know the co-ordinates for Yavin IV?"

R2-D2 whistled an affirmative.

"Nixa, are you telling me you speak binary now?" Essa said.

"Apparently," Nixa answered.

"How on earth do you think you're going to convince Henren to go running off to Yavin IV? We haven't even told him his garbage can was a robot!" Essa said.

Nixa fixed her with a look, "I'm going over Henren's head."

"No," Essa said.

"Yes," Nixa said.

 

"I cannot believe that General Carter gave you a ship and a pilot and let you go haring off into this galaxy on some crazy quest," Essa said, but not loud enough for the pilot or their military escort to hear.

Nixa was rewiring some of R2-D2's systems under his direction. "Have you ever read a single SG-1 mission report?"

Essa huffed, "Well. Okay."

"Besides, we have some very scary marines guarding us," she said, carefully soldering the wire connections.

Essa glanced at the marines. She'd seen tanks with fewer armaments.

"I'm surprised she didn't send more archeologists," Essa said.

Nixa shrugged, "I don't think we have enough archeologists to drop one per planet and finish in this lifetime."

Nixa closed the panel. R2-D2 let out some trilling noises. "You're welcome," she said, patting him on the head.

"We're coming up on the co-ordinates," the pilot said from the cockpit. The marines all started straightening their gear, donning helmets and other marine type activities. Sergeant Vim made her way back to where Nixa and Essa sat with R2-D2. 

"We'll do scans from orbit, and my squad will secure the area before you disembark," Sergeant Vim said.

Nixa nodded. Essa scowled. R2-D2 went very quiet.

The rain forest had crowded so close to the temple they would have missed it if not for R2-D2, they had to blast a landing area for themselves. The marines found exactly what had been found on every planet the expedition had explored so far: abundant plant life, ruins and ancient remains. No animals, no sentient life.

Under Sergeant Vim's watchful eye, R2-D2 lead them deep into the structure until they came to what he called central command. The marines began unpacking lights and generators. R2-D2 and Nixa began working together to hook them into the antiquated alien equipment. About half the marine squad stood uneasily on guard. Essa watched all of it with bemusement.

One by one the consoles lit up, making the cavernous room seem even bigger somehow. Following R2-D2's instructions, Nixa brought up the logs and then set them all to be translated into English which was what R2-D2 called Undoonie Coarse dialect, they weren't sure until now if he'd been teasing them. 

Nixa brought up a hologram of a woman who identified herself as Mon Mothma and began a sort of log of events.

"I do not believe this Star Trek level shit," Essa said in awe.

"I think we're going to have to call it Star _Wars_ ," Nixa said as Mon Mothma explained that the entry was mostly to store the recorded radio chatter of the destruction of the Death Star. The Alliance weren't to know it would later be called the _first_ Death Star.

They listened to the pilots and the Alliance command as they destroyed the first Death Star. The room grew more and more quiet as everyone strained not to miss a moment of the long dead voices, and the moment the pilots reported the Death Star destroyed, they all— Essa included— cheered.

R2-D2 meanwhile had gone over to one of the smaller computer consoles and plugged himself in. At some point while Nixa and Essa were looking through the rest of the archives he began, what was for him, shouting.

"What is he saying?" Essa asked.

" _They're here, they're here,_ " Nixa translated.

"Who's here?" Essa asked.

Nixa frowned, "His family."

R2-D2 unplugged from the console and went racing off into the depths of the temple. Nixa grabbed a flashlight and went charging after him, followed by a lot of panicked marines. Essa followed at a more sedate pace, bringing along a generator, she had a feeling they were going to need it.

 

There were four slabs lent against a wall, with four figures sculpted on the surfaces, or so it seemed. There was also a humanoid droid, standing still next to the last one, and a round astromech sitting in front of one of the slabs, looking up at it. The room was still, the droids were dusty and rusted here and there. 

But there were lights blinking slowly on the slabs.

R2-D2 came into the room at his top speed which was only slightly faster than Nixa could run. He went from slab to slab, nattering away to himself or the people frozen in carbonite.

Nixa entering the room, and barely managing to breathe without wheezing, assumed that's what she was looking at. When R2-D2 saw her he came rolling over, speaking at such a rate she had trouble understanding him.

"Okay, okay, what do you need me to do first?"

_Everything._

 

Nixa and a marine who knew a bit of automotive repair started on the two droids with R2-D2's help. The others began thawing the people in carbonite, covering them with emergency blankets and helping them to sit down. When C-3PO whirred to life, R2-D2 nearly knocked him over in his excitement. 

"R2-D2 calm down this instant, all this excitement will overload your circuits," the droid proclaimed, resting his hand on R2-D2's head. "My, my what's all this. Who these people, what have they done?"

At that moment BB8 came on line and went charging through the marines until he came up against a man who was still blindly shivering in his emergency blanket. BB8 nearly bowled him over, but seemed to content himself snuggling up to the man, who began running his hands over the droid and listening to it carefully.

"R2-D2 explain yourself," the tall gold droid said, causing several of the marines to stare. They were use to R2-D2's beeps, but a droid speaking was a little eerie. "The detonation of the Force Killer is imminent, we'd hoped to preserve the humans in carbonite, now you've ruined it."

"No," said one of the women. "It worked."

C-3PO spun on his heel and made her an awkward sort of bow. "Mistress Rey," he said, deferentially.

"What a strange place the galaxy is now," Rey said, staring around the room blindly. She wasn't shivering and she seemed far more alert than the others. "I think there might be others, like us, sleeping. I can feel them dreaming in the Force."

"Oh, damn," said the man not currently cuddling a droid. "She's gonna want to go and rescue them all."

"Damn right we are," said the other woman.

Rey swept the room until she found Nixa, she was still blind with hibernation sickness but she fixed Nixa with a stare anyway, "Thank you for helping my friend." She paused, swallowed, then intoned, "May the Force be with you."


End file.
